The Entertainer and the Social Critic: Dušan Radić and His Balada o mesecu lutalici [Ballad of the Vagabond Moon]

Abstract

In 1957 Dusan Radić (1929-2010) composed a ballet entitled Balada o mesecu lutalici (The Ballad of the Vagabond Moon) Op. 5, dubbed "A burlesque love game", with lyrics taken from the poem of the same name by Bora Cosić, which served as a libretto. The composer himself divided his works into serious pieces (with opus numbers) and non-serious works for entertainment. The ballet, premiered in 1960 in Belgrade, has an opus number, although Radić claimed he composed it for the purposes of entertainment. In this paper, we are going to examine several features of this ballet, bearing in mind the context in which the composer lived and worked.